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read between the lines
the accident, narratively it happened exactly like in the movies, which was not what i expected...reminiscent of the car crash from crash.we were driving along a narrow road and suddenly from the back seat i see headlights getting nearer, then our car swerves to the right, tilts a bit to the left, and glass is flying. and all the time while this plays out there is this deafening silence...eerily just like the movies. i feel my right cheek and wrist getting bruised before we stop in the middle of the road, with our car parked sideways. for some reason i panic, rub my cheeks and get a bit hysterical...not hysterical enough to lose my mind, but enough to cry without tears. my first thought was to get out of the car since we are in the middle of the road and are liable to get banged up again. i panic even more when i realise that i can't open the car door, and neither can my parents. gradually people from the squatter houses nearby come out and walk towards us. one of them gestures towards my car door lock..and then i realise it was just the auto-lock working. i push up the lock from my car door and my dad's (in front of me), and i get out. but my mom's car door is jammed and people have to pry it open for her. my dad can't get up, his leg right leg hurts badly and his face is in both emotional and physical pain. i've only ever seen that look before when someone he loved died...can't remember who. my mom gets out, and we help dad out to the side of the road. his face is still carrying that look and he keeps saying "but that guy banged us..." that look sort of wakes me up from my hysteria somehow and i keep rubbing the painful part above his right knee -- thank god no blood. i have minor glass splinter cuts on both legs below the knees but they don't hurt as much as my right wrist...but only if i move it in a certain way. my mom is asking my dad repeatedly "who do i call?" eventually he says to call her sister, while i suggest calling the police, which my dad does. she goes off to call my aunt, while going to the car to get her bag. my bag is already slung over my left shoulder. eventually my dad snaps out of it and after several long minutes of me rubbing his leg, he is able to walk. meanwhile people are beginning to gather around us..another car who had just come in the opposing lane, passers-by and squatter home owners. the cops come in a jiffy and so does the photographer. pretty soon a tow truck comes by too. all the while, our car is straddling two lanes sideways, but more so on the left lane we were on, but the car that banged into us is facing us, opposing the line of traffic, on the right side of the road with its right tyre and fender completely severed. the car behind us that slammed into my mother's car door (she couldn't brake in time) is behind our car. the female driver of that car speaks to my parents and leaves the scene quickly before the police arrive. the guy who banged us is pulled out of the car by passers-by, and that's when my mom and the people realise that he is drunk. he is quick to pretend like he doesn't know what has happened. my mom mentions much later that he actually smelled of beer. my parents go over to talk to the cops and my dad picks up the drunkard's car bumper to look at the licence plate and slips over the car oil spilling onto the road from that car. my mother screams and that's when i get a bit hysterical until i rush over and see that the liquid covering his pants is not blood, after dabbing a bit of it with my fingers. my spinster aunt comes after a while...together with one of my aunties from kl and her husband. she has the same mini-hysteria i had and asks how we are -- until she realises we are all all right and then she calms down. after some discussion my parents decide to go to the police station, while my aunties take me to the doctor. my usual clinic is closed by the time we arrive, a few minutes past midnight, so we go to my spinster aunty's ex-workplace. i message my brother in the car and speak to him further in the lavatory while we wait at the doctor's, because my aunties weren't keen that i tell him what happened. the doctor cleans my wounds but only gives painkillers and antibiotics for my bruises, saying that the pain on my wrist and (less so) my cheek are just abrasions. then we all head back to the police station. the drunk guy is sitting uncomfortably next to my dad when i ask my dad where he is. my parents later tell me that he was my dad's ex-colleague when i was a kid. really like, eerie. we soon all go to my matriarchal grandmother's house, where she is waiting anxiously yet silently for us. she puts chinese medicine lovingly on my wrist and provides some also for my dad, who is stubbornly pretending his leg is not as painful as it really is. my cousin, son of my aunt and her husband asks me what happened. we talk while my mom talks with her sisters about how the drunkard was telling the police we driving into his lane instead of vice versa, and how this would play out. she also washes the blood off her knee that was hiding under her skirt and realises her ankle bruise is slightly swollen. after a while we take my spinster aunt's car to drive back home. my mom only has to start the engine when the photographer calls. he gives us the good news that the drunkard confessed to driving into our lane (but only on the grounds of reckless driving which carries a lesser charge), which means no more legal wrangling needed. we take a different way home and arrive back safely. |
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